ARTICLES ABOUT PARRAMORE BY DATE - PAGE 4

Orlando leaders on Monday pledged to work with Parramore residents who want more security cameras in residential areas of their community. The Rev. Glendy Hamilton presented the City Council with a petition signed by more than 600 residents and business owners asking for more cameras linked to the Police Department. Thirty-six of OPD's 138 cameras are in Parramore, but they're around Amway Center and commercial streets. Hamilton and others say they're needed on residential streets to deter drug dealing.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer confirmed Thursday that the city's recent land purchases in Parramore are the preferred site for a Major League Soccer stadium. As first reported by the Orlando Sentinel, over the past few months the city has quietly bought 21 parcels of land along Church Street, a block west of the Amway Center, for $8.3 million. At the time, Dyer would not reveal the reason for the purchases, calling it a "strategic acquisition. " But Thursday, the mayor said it's the best location to build a stadium.

Students in Orlando's Parramore neighborhood are coming back home. The school district has been busing hundreds of Parramore students to eight elementary schools as part of the district's former desegregation order. But the Orange County School Board agreed Thursday to build a K-8 school for them in their own neighborhood, ending the need for busing. "We're going to try to get these children home, into one community, like we all want to be," said Board Member Kat Gordon, who represents the Parramore area.

Orlando City Soccer Club, the minor-league team pushing for a new stadium, announced a plan Thursday to build two community soccer fields in Parramore. The proposal from the team's charitable foundation is still in its early stages, and no specific location for the youth fields has been identified. Kay Rawlins, chairwoman of Orlando City Soccer Foundation and wife of team president Phil Rawlins, said the organization is in discussions with potential donors and talking with city officials about sites.

Orlando's purchase of $4 million worth of Parramore property last week wasn't the full extent of the city's land grab in the neighborhood. The City Council on Feb. 25 approved the purchase of four parcels between West Church Street and West Central Boulevard, land thought to be the preferred site for a new Major League Soccer stadium. But records show that Mayor Buddy Dyer's administration has bought an additional $4.3 million worth of property without City Council approval. During the past few months, city officials have signed real-estate contracts on 21 individual parcels of land on the same blocks west of Amway Center arena.

There's no agreement to build a Major League Soccer stadium in Orlando, but city officials don't seem to be waiting. On Monday, the City Council approved the $4 million purchase of four parcels of land in Parramore, a block west of the Amway Center, home court of the Orlando Magic. City officials would not confirm the property is the favored site for a $110 million stadium sought by Orlando City Soccer Club, simply calling it a "strategic acquisition. " Mayor Buddy Dyer and city administrators said they have no specific plan for the property, perhaps for fear of driving up the cost of the additional parcels needed to assemble the full stadium footprint.

Parramore community activists pledged Thursday night to wage a long-term, grass-roots campaign against the city of Orlando's plans to redevelop the site once occupied by Amway Arena into a high-end, mixed-use development called Creative Village. "This is just the start of our campaign to stop Creative Village," Lawanna Gelzer told about 20 people assembled in the day-care center owned by her mother. "We're not going away. We in for the fight. " Gelzer said the proposal for the 68-acre site is built on a foundation of broken promises that came from the city during other redevelopment projects, including the original Amway Arena and the Amway Center that replaced it. She walked through a history of projects proposed but never built and ones that displaced the poor for the upscale.

Tressica Mincey counted her blessings as she ate an early Christmas dinner of ham, green beans, yams, fried chicken and mac-and-cheese Thursday at John H. Jackson Community Center. The single mother was one of about 200 people - 150 of them children - who attended the 29th annual Parramore Heritage Christmas Party, hosted by the Orlando Police Department. Every child, including Mincey's daughters, 1-year-old Ant'taliyah and 2-year-old Ant'talaysia, went home with a full tummy and a gift wrapped in festive paper.

A 58-year-old Orlando woman was charged with first-degree murder after police said she stabbed a man to death in a domestic incident Thursday afternoon in Parramore . Marilyn Green is accused of stabbing 55-year-old James Albert Goines several times inside a home in the 600 block of Gore during an argument. Police found Goines lying on the ground outside the home. He was rushed to Orlando Regional Medical Center where he later died. Green is being held without bail at the Orange County Jail.